


a month of sundays

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M, Mail Order Brides
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:13:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22896232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: This isn't what Dan expected when he opened the door.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 91





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> I swear darling, I'll show you a blue moon.

The knock comes a little after noon. Dan has to look at the door and ask them to wait for a second. As if he hadn’t been sitting on the couch, staring at the door. Waiting. 

He takes slow, deliberate steps toward the door, working not to look too eager. It's been a month since he sent the letter off that brought this person to his door, and he’s been working to keep his expectations low.

He’s willing himself to calm down even as he turns the knob and tugs the door open. 

There’s a man on the other side of the door. He’s tall and a little pale and definitely a guy.

Weird. 

“Daniel? I’m here from the exchange service,” the guy says, helping Dan with a small, polite smile of his own. “May I come in?”

“Oh, sure,” Dan says, stepping out of the way. 

He’s never done this before, but he guesses it makes sense that there’s someone to come before the girl, to make sure the house seems ok, and meet the host.

“Do you want tea?” Dan asks, trying to think about what he’s got in his pantry. He hadn’t been planning to host multiple people. Otherwise, he would have prepared a tray, some snacks, and tea. “I’ve got, mm, black, green, and some dandelion I just finished drying.” 

The guy looks impressed, “You make your own tea? Dandelion, please.”

Dan shrugs, “Just easy, local stuff. The rest of it I have to get in town.”

Guy shrugs and doesn’t say anything else, so Dan leaves him to prepare a mug of tea and grab the sugar and powdered creamer. 

“I don’t have the real stuff,” Dan says, bringing it all back to the front room of the house. “Power can be a little sketchy this far out, and cream can go off so fast.”

The guy nods and takes the whole mess from Dan. 

“I prefer powdered,” he says, with a little smile, like it might be a secret.

Dan shakes his head, “You’ve gotta keep things like that to yourself, mate. I don’t think we’re quite far out enough to admit that some of us miss processed food.”

The guy laughs and puts down his tea accouterments to offer a hand for Dan to shake, “I’m Phil.”

“Phil,” Dan repeats with a smile. “It's nice to meet you. I’m Dan.”

They sit and make small talk for another few minutes, about how easy it was for Phil to find the house and how well-maintained town was. It was nice, and Phil was surprisingly easy to talk to, but eventually, the conversation sputtered to a stop. 

“Well,” Phil says, looking a little uncomfortable. “This was great, Dan, thank you for the tea and conversation. It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to just sit down and chat with someone. But I’d like to meet your sister? If that’s okay with you?”

Dan furrows his brow. “Excuse me?”

Phil frowns. “Your sister? Or...or your mother, maybe? I’d like to meet her.”

Now, Dan’s insides twist up. He hasn’t had to speak about his parents in years, now. It’s weird that this stranger so casually brings them up. 

“I don’t have a sister,” Dan says slowly. “Or a mother. My whole family was taken.”

Phil’s eyes get wider and wider as Dan speaks. And that’s when Dan figures out that there’s been a mistake. 

The Event, which is what they call it in Dan’s town, was the kind of scientific phenomenon that sounds like something out of a comic book. It was an illness, a superbug that killed most of the scientists before they could find a cure, wiping out just over half the human population and leaving the surviving half shocked and dazed. 

It wasn’t illness, but plain human greed and dysfunction that caused the rest-- the violence, the stealing, the nationalism and hiding. It's been ten years since the actual illness swept through. Dan hears that there are cities that are nearly back to their former glory, but he wouldn’t know. Populations are guarded fiercely. People passing through, like Phil, are enough to set the rumour mill ablaze. There’s not much travel allowed. 

“You aren’t a chaperone?” Dan asks. “I assumed you’d come to check out the house, make sure I wasn’t...abusive or something.”

“There’s been a mistake,” Phil says, like that isn’t immediately obvious. 

In the newly halved world, people are incredibly invested in repopulation. There are people who do it violently, and there are people who hide their violence in softly murmured concerns about how it’d be such a  _ waste _ for a young, strapping man like Dan to spend all his time alone, without procreating. Or doing things that look like making a baby, but couldn’t ever be. But they never say that part out loud. At least not in his town.

The kind of service Dan had sent out for was explicit in their mission. "Bring mankind back to its former glory" was right there in their contracts. "Go out and be fruitful" was their sign off.

Dan wasn't so interested in the cause of restocking humanity as he was interested in not offing himself quite so soon after the apocalypse just missed him. But they had what he needed. 

He'd known lonely in his old life, when he had a family and friends to ignore. The loneliness he feels now, when the lights still come on and the water still runs, but there's no one there to tell him what he was like as a five year old, or even as a twenty five year old, is the kind that keeps him up at night, wondering if oblivion could be that much worse.

It was worse, he'd decided eventually, it was worse to choose to kill yourself when you'd been skipped over by the apocalypse, and managed to carve out a survival. It’s worse to let loneliness be its own kind of end of the world. 

And he knew there were men out there who’d just been waiting for an excuse like the apocalypse to stop pretending to be decent. At least he wasn’t one of those. 

He'd found himself at a mail order bride service that dressed itself up as repopulating the earth with humanity and he'd thought _fuck it_.

Except now a man with long limbs and blue eyes and none of the softness Dan associated with being able to give birth was standing in his front room and mostly all Dan could remember was the fine print that he'd only read because he had more time to read than he wanted these days.

_No returns for the first thirty days_ , the line said. _**No exceptions.**_

"Well," Dan said, shrugging. "I guess we're roommates for the month."

The man nods, and he doesn't even look half as hunted as Dan feels, so Dan just says, "Remind me of your name again?"

Phil tells him, and there's a sparkle of amusement in his eye that makes Dan think that there could be worse ways to fill a month.

*

“You can sleep here,” Dan says, pushing the door open to the guest room. It hadn’t always been a guest room, but Phil doesn’t need to know that. It was clean and well kept up and Dan had spent all day airing out the musty, locked up smell. 

“You prepared a second room?” Phil asks, looking at him curiously. 

“Well,” Dan says. “Yes? She would… you, I guess. You need somewhere to sleep.”

“Hm,” Phil says. “Most people assume we’re happy to share the bed with them as soon as we meet.”

Dan blinks and starts to ask more, but Phil’s already walked into the room and sat down on the bed. 

He’d chosen not to think too much about the whole thing, because it didn’t take a genius to dream up all the ways a service like this could be seedy. But it hadn’t occurred to Dan that people would regularly return people to a service like this, enough that Phil could say something about “most” people that used his service.

“Um. Ok. My bedroom is this one here, across the hallway. I’m going to start lunch soon. If you want some,” Dan offered. He’s had visitors, in the time he’s lived in the house, but the thought of leaving someone to their own devices in his home feels... Odd. Not unpleasant, but definitely unusual. 

“That’d be great,” Phil says, smiling at Dan. “Thank you.”

“Sure, uh… sure,” Dan says and nods, forcing himself to walk away. 

No returns for a month. That’s fine. Dan could be ok with this for a month. 

Dan cooks a simple lunch, grilling some fish the family down the street had traded him for a few tutoring sessions with their kids and some rice. It was a special occasion, so Dan tosses in a few pats of butter and salts the rice. 

They talk over it, and it's not half as awkward as Dan thought it could be. 

Phil is sunny in a way people mostly aren’t these days, and he laughs a lot. Dan’s not totally alone, with the family a few houses down the street and folks who live closer to town visiting occasionally. But he can’t think of the last time he had someone stay for tea and dinner, who’s here just to chat with him and make him laugh. It’s so nice it makes his chest ache a little. 

They finish lunch and keep talking about nothing in particular. Phil tells stories about his walk from his town to here. Dan talks about the kids he tutors in writing and some basic piano. 

Dusk seems like it's more dramatic now, when everyone reserves their allotment of generator fuel for things like cooking and emergencies. The room around them goes softly golden and eventually blue. 

“Here,” Dan says, reaching for the candle and match that sit on the kitchen table. 

“You don’t have to,” Phil says, standing. “It’s been a long day. I’m tired.”

“Okay,” Dan says and stands as well. “I guess I’ll do the same, then.”

He cringes internally. It’s true, that without Phil there’s not much for him to do other than read a book in bed, but Phil doesn’t need to know just how pathetic and lonely Dan is without him. Not yet. 

Dan leads the way to their bedrooms, as if Phil could get lost, and stands in the doorway to his. Phil mirrors him and stands in silence for a moment, watching each other. 

“Well,” Dan says awkwardly. “Goodnight, then!”

Phil nods and smiles and then takes a step forward, opening his arms. He stops just short of Dan’s personal space and waits. 

Dan sees people every few days when he goes to the open-air market where he gets most of his food. Sometimes, when he’s exchanging money, they’ll touch hands and it feels like touching a hot pan. Sometimes old women with hands that are a little too soft for the hard life they’ve unexpectedly inherited will rub a fond hand across his dimpled cheek and it makes him want to cry a little. It's been years since someone’s properly hugged him.

All of this must show on his face, because Phil gives him a smile that can only be encouraging and beckons Dan in with a wave of his hands. 

Dan goes. It’d be awkward not to. Phil’s almost the exact same height as him and he’s thin, wiry muscles and skin and not much else. His fingers are cold but his trunk is warm. When Dan sighs, their chests brush together. Phil moves a little closer and they’re touching, shoulder to thigh. It’s almost too much, and Dan shakes against the feeling. 

“It’s been really nice to meet you, Dan.” Phil murmurs and lets Dan go.

“...You too,” Dan breathes, ducking his head, trying to hide his blush. “It’s been great to spend the day with you, Phil.”

The last thing Dan sees of Phil that day is his smile before he closes the door. 

Dan never knew quiet and dark in the times before. He thought he had, but there was always ambient light slipping past his curtains and the noises of a city rising or settling in for the night.

The darkness here lays across Dan like a blanket, a close hug that starts to feel choking if he thinks about it too long. When he sleeps, he sleeps better than ever. 

But not even an apocalypse cures insomnia, and he doesn’t have the medicine to make things easier. He only has so much wax for candles, so eventually he has to be alone with the sounds the night makes, the peek of stars and weak moonlight through his window and his thoughts. 

And his thoughts, tonight, are the feeling of Phil’s chest against his.

Dan doesn’t know Phil. All he knows is he’s got really blue eyes and mousy brown hair that’s long enough to be constantly in his eyes and he’s a man, as far as Dan knows. 

When they’d been fleeing the chaos that came with living in a dying city, it hadn’t occurred to Dan what else he’d be leaving behind. 

In some ways, he’s lucky. He likes women. He’s had a few flings with women here. They weren’t substantial enough to stand up to the sucking blankness of his grief, but they’d been fun, from what he can remember. 

There have been…others. People who weren’t lucky like him and who couldn’t pretend. 

No one says anything. But there are looks. There’s the way no one quite smiles at them. And the way they all disappear, eventually. 

It’s just another horror Dan can’t look directly at. And it’s fine that he can pretend. 

Except that he’s always liked boys more. Except that girls are wonderful, but they don’t make his skin light up the way Jonas down the street does when he chops wood every other morning without his shirt. They don’t make him look away so no one notices his blush when Ammon, with his long locs and big brown eyes, smiles at Dan when he brings the generator fuel for the month. 

There were lots of words for what Dan is in the world before. And there are none now, that aren’t whispered, or said with pity or spite. 

So Dan doesn’t think about what he is. But he can’t stop thinking about the feeling of Phil’s chest against his, or the way his long fingers brushed against Dan’s sides when he pulled away from the hug. 

A few years ago Dan had access to looking at any kind of sex he wanted, could go a town away to the gay bar. He could hook up with all sorts of people who were down to have fun figuring out how they could get each other off. 

And now he’s here, in the dead silence of a small town where everyone has blown out of their candles, pretending he isn’t hard because a cute boy hugged him and smiled at Dan before he went to bed.

He sighs and stretches his arms above his head and flexes his feet, tilting his hips forward. The sheets brush against his cock as they slip off. It’s enough to make Dan shiver. 

He wraps his hand around himself, smoothing his palm across the head a few times to nudge the foreskin the rest of the way down. 

He closes his eyes-- not that it mattered in the deep dark of his room-- and thinks about what he would have done if Phil hadn’t pulled away. If Phil had swept his hands a little lower, pulled Dan’s hips in close.

If he’d tried, Dan would have said no at first. He’d have to, just in case it was a trick. And in his mind, Phil would take that for an answer, would step back respectfully, maybe try to apologize. And then Dan would follow him and press his lips to Phil’s. 

Dan comes with a grunt and a soft cry, spilling over his knuckles. 

He rolls his eyes at himself and rolls over to grab his discarded t-shirt from the floor to wipe himself off. 

Of course he’s managed to develop a crush on his mail order husband in less than an afternoon. And there isn’t a thing he can do about it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dan stares at the sky through his window, watching the inky plum of the night slide into the slate grey then hazy blue of the morning. He’s not usually awake so early, most days the sun is crawling toward the middle of the sky when he crawls out of bed. 

Sleep had come but now he’s wide awake, unsureness buzzing like static electricity on his skin. 

He’s thinking about all the things he hadn’t given Phil last night-- instructions on how to work the shower, a towel, a tour of the house. The second-hand anxiety of imagining how uncomfortable he’d be in Phil’s situation drives Dan up and out into the kitchen, tugging on a pair of cut-offs that used to be joggers and a shirt that’s far too long on him. 

He’s got no idea what time Phil’s going to wake up, but he’s got enough eggs and the ends and odds of other things to at least make a proper breakfast. 

He hums to himself while he gets the fire set up for the day and grabs enough water for tea before he heads to the basement of the house to get supplies from the icebox. 

The basement of the house is much cooler than the ground floor and Dan shivers a little when his feet hit the chilled concrete. The sound of his bare feet slapping against the floor echoes a little in the dark, mostly empty room. 

The icebox--a big fridge freezer that’s been tipped on its side and the generator that hums quietly next to it--needs restocking. He always waits too long to make his usual bi-weekly trip. There are enough people with small gardens that are willing to trade with him that he can put it off. 

It’s not empty, Dan never lets the deeply frozen foods get too low, but the every day items are looking thin, and whatever he might stretch on his own, he has to feed two people now. 

Dan grabs the last of the eggs and pokes at the mustard greens that have gone floppy and a little wrinkled with time.

It’s a couple hours walk to the next town where the market is and even though there’s always room to spend the night at a waystation or a friendly family’s house, the trip is exhausting. 

Maybe, Dan thinks, maybe it’ll be easier when there are two people. 

He grimaces. He can’t afford to think like that. He might not even take Phil, just so he doesn’t get used to the idea of having someone to go to market with. 

Having another person feels like a godsend, a balm to the loneliness that feels like it's scratching up the inside of his brain like a wild animal. But it’s so temporary, it's bittersweet in Dan’s mouth.

He sighs and grabs the things he needs for breakfast out of the icebox and heads back upstairs. 

The kitchen’s already starting to warm up with the crackle of the fire. Dan makes sure the doors and windows are closed to trap the heat.

He sighs and turns the faucet, waiting for the pipes to ring and shudder until they finally eject water. He tucks the kettle under until it's full up and sets it on the stove. 

He doesn’t really understand the system the town has put in place so people still have running water. Someone tried to explain it to him once, probably Jonas, and his eyes had glazed over. All he knows is all the faucets work, even if he has to wait a minute or two, and he’s never gotten sick from drinking it. 

Dan jumps at the sound of the door creaking open. 

“Good morning,” Phil says. He’s wearing a version of his outfit from yesterday, trousers looking a little softer than the crisply ironed ones he wore before. He’s still wearing another buttoned-up white shirt but he’s foregone the smart little tie. Dan thinks about how hard it must be, to keep a shirt so starkly white. Most of Dan’s clothes are things he had before, gone softer and worn with time and washings, and the clothes he’s traded for. Most things have a patch or two and have gone pastel in the sun. 

Phil makes Dan a little nervous just looking weirdly prim and proper in Dan’s little homey shack at the end of the world. And there’s desire, right on the heels of the first feeling like something slathering. Dan’s fingers shake a little with wanting to unbutton that white shirt, chase the little slice of skin Phil can’t quite cover up. 

“Hi,” Dan says instead, looking away. “There’ll be tea soon. I was going to make eggs.”

Phil nods and sits at the table without an offer to help. It’s rude, maybe, but immensely relieving that Dan’s not going to have to deal with Phil trying to meet every one of his needs. It makes it easier to not think about some particular needs he doesn’t want to act on. 

“What do you make?” Phil asks, fingering one of the dark veins of the wooden tabletop. 

“Hmm?” Dan asks, “What do you mean?”

“Eggs with real butter,” Phil points out. “I didn’t see any cows coming in, or chickens. Just little gardens. So it must be expensive.” 

“Ah,” Dan says, sure his cheeks are coloring a little. People don’t usually do the calculations of his little home, but Phil isn’t wrong. There are little luxuries here and there that tell stories that Dan doesn’t. “This and that. Some candles. I teach kids in the winter sometimes. I uh, I write.” 

Dan focuses on the eggs so he can’t see whatever response Phil does or doesn’t have. 

The truth is Dan’s got enough skills to take care of himself and his house, and little talent that’s actually worth much after the end of the world. 

Shockingly, there isn’t much need for lawyers or burgeoning internet celebrities when there’s only enough electricity to just make do and the efficacy of law is really, frighteningly, dependent on the will of whatever group of people you’ve found yourself alongside. 

The village Dan’s settled in is largeish and well-stocked enough that people are still able to be kind. Their kindness looks like offering Dan their scraps and extras and pretending that his knack for getting kids to remember their alphabet is worth a container of butter or, after a sweet summer, a slab of salted meat. 

But those are the quiet thoughts he has on his worst nights--terrible wonderings of what will happen when the wealth, and the kindness, dry up and his neighbors ask him to contribute something real to their lives.

Phil, to his credit, doesn’t ask Dan why he doesn’t have something more worthwhile to offer. 

Instead, he says, “Write what?”

The eggs are done, scrambled into moist hills that fall over themselves. Dan tips them out then throws in the floppy greens and another sliver of butter. He watches them ripple and curl in the heat and fat and sighs. 

“Little plays. Stories. There’s not a lot of entertainment around here. We can be hard to get to, you probably noticed. So, people come to me for things like that.”

The greens shrink and darken and Dan stirs them one more time before splitting them between their plates. He brings them to the table, setting Phil’s down in front of him before sitting. It’s a simple meal, Dan thinks absently, would have been better with bread. 

“I was going to be a lawyer before,” Dan says. “But I’d dropped out before any of this happened.”

“Huh,” Phil says. “You must be good, if people pay you for stories.” 

Dan feels his flush come back, his cheeks warming, but he keeps his head up, says, “Yes. I’m very good.” 

Phil nods and doesn’t say anything else. It makes Dan feel cross. He’s allowed to be ashamed of his little craft, but it keeps him fed and housed and it's bullshit for someone else to judge him for it. He gets enough of that from Ammon and Jonas on either side of him, and from the father of the Harris family down the street some, who teases him about being a ‘little schoolteacher’ when he drops his kids at Dan’s house for a few hours. 

Dan stands and grabs his fork, doesn’t bother trying to hide his irritation when he says, “I’m going back to my room.” 

Phil doesn’t say anything, just nods and keeps eating, dragging his eggs through the thin juice of the mustard greens. 

Dan doesn’t storm off, trying to get more of a rise from Phil would just be dramatic. He just walks back to his room.

His bed is made, back to rights from the nest of covers he’d left when he’d headed to get breakfast. The clothes that were scattered throughout the room are in the little wicker hamper he keeps beside his nightstand. And the curtains are pushed back, letting the warming sun of the oncoming day stream through. 

The door to Phil’s room is closed, but Dan could imagine that Phil’s bed looks similar, crisply made.    
  


Dan goes back to bed and he dreams of stoplights. 

There are actual stoplights in town. They're dead but still hanging above their heads, silent. 

The world of Dan's dream is greyscale, except the stoplight’s tourmaline blue eyes. The lights are a rich blue-green and Dan feels warm looking at them, drawn in. Everything around them falls away and he sees his own grey hand reaching toward them. 

There is a knock -- three times, stern & worldshaking -- and Dan wakes up on an immediate, cut off breath. His cheeks are wet, his eyes hot. 

He wakes up crying every other night and half the time he takes an afternoon nap. It’s normal. There are people in the village who wail in their sleep, one or two who sleepwalk, desperately trying to outrun the worst parts of their sleep. 

Dan wipes his cheeks with his forearm and rolls out of bed. 

There are voices coming from the front of the house. Dan recognizes Ammon. There's a panicked split second where he has to remember that Phil is here, and a longer surge of fear that pushes him out of bed and to the door, before Phil can say anything incriminating. 

"Dan," Ammon says, looking at him over Phil's shoulder. Jonas stands at the bottom of the stairs, pretending disinterest.

Phil turns to look at Dan. His cheeks are a little pink. There’s a shiver of recognition when Dan sees. 

Dan wonders, just for the length of a breath, if it's because Phil feels the way Dan feels when he talks to Ammon. Every conversation is a game of how long he can go without glancing at Ammon's perfect, full lips or his broad shoulders, his beautiful, dark hair or the incredibly human imperfection of his cracked front tooth. Jonas is no better, the tight swell of his arms a testament to long days of laboring and the years he and Ammon have spent building their own house.

"Hi!" Dan says, too high, too eager, too happy to see him. He clears his throat. "Hello, Ammon. Jonas."

“Dan,” Ammon says again, “Hi. We were worried. No offense.”

He says the last part to Phil, who nods and smiles like he’s never taken offense to a thing in his life. 

“We figured you weren’t the type to up and leave without goodbyes,” Jonas calls from the short distance of the cracked sidewalk pavement to the door. 

There are a lot of unspoken things flying through the air--curiosity about Phil, confusion about why it's him and not Dan opening the door, eagerness to meet a new person. 

“I’m a friend,” Phil lies smoothly, “I’ve known Dan for years and just now found the time and resources to make it here.”

Ammon nods now, the sight of Dan apparently relaxing him until he can nod and clap a big hand to Phil’s shoulder. 

“What a gift that is, eh? A friend! And how long will you be staying--?”

“Phil,” Phil offers, “Just a month.” 

Phil doesn’t even glance at Dan for confirmation, or to check and see if the answer is right. 

Dan finally finds his words and says, “Phil’s from a bit away. He came in yesterday.”

“That’s right,” Ammon says nodding, “I heard we had a visitor but people lost track of him. Should’ve guessed he was holed up with you here, hidden away.”

Dan wills himself not to blush. Growing up, Dan had mostly had girls for friends and the few boys he’d befriended were the same weedy, nerdy type as him. It’s been years and he still hasn’t gotten used to the jocular, physical way Ammon and Jonas inhabit space, the casual, unintentional sensuality of their manliness. 

“We’re going swimming today,” Ammon says. He’s still resting his hand on Phil’s shoulder but he’s looking at Dan. “It’s too hot for chores and all that. We’ll probably do some washing too, but mostly swimming. Nick’s found a new stream, a little bit off from the regular trails.”

Jonas gives a lazy little salute, like he’s accepting their thanks before they can give them. 

“Ah,” Dan says, casting his mind about for a reason to say no. He always says no, when Ammon and Jonas invite him out like this. It’s too risky, he always feels like there’s only so long he can fight the long, hungry gazes he wants to rest on them. 

“Is it deep?” Phil asks. He’s been in Dan’s house for a whole day now but this is the first time Dan's seen him interested in something. His eyes take on a particular shine, his eyebrow raises just so. Dan looks away. These aren’t the kind of things men notice about each other, and he can’t afford to notice them in front of Ammon and Jonas. They’re the closest thing to friends he has here, even if he keeps them carefully at arms length. 

“Came to the top of my chest,” Jonas says, not bothering to hide his pride. 

Dan can imagine Jonas’s chest from a few too many stolen glances, the light brown fur dusted across the tight-stretched skin of his pecks. 

He needs to find a reason, any reason, to say no before any of them catch the way his cheeks have gone hot and pink. 

“Then we’ll have no problem staying upright,” Phil says. He ends the sentence with a smile, the kind of cheeky but sincere thing that falls just so--a manly tease about the inches of difference between Phil’s height and Jonas’s, tilted in the direction of friendship rather than a slight. 

Dan watches the joke land, and the split second before Jonas’s face cracks into a grin--the moment when he decides if Phil is friend or someone to defend against. 

Dan makes that calculation every time he goes to town, when the father of one of his little pupils opens the door instead of their mother. Dan’s never been so adept at slipping beneath the kinds of defense men put around themselves and their affections. He’s always been too awkward, too aware of the ways he can’t quite straighten his spine, or his wrist, to be like they want him to be. 

And Phil hadn’t quite done that either. He hadn’t puffed himself up to seem larger or deepen his already pleasantly low voice. He’d done it with a joke, a quirk of an eyebrow, and a smile that’s gentle, and inviting. 

He’d done it by flirting. 

It was subtle enough that men like Ammon and Jonas wouldn’t notice. They wouldn’t be able to put a finger on it because men like them had probably never experienced this kind of manipulation from another man. 

But Phil had disarmed them both with a sentence. A joke and a bat of his eyes. 

Envy spread, burning in the pit of Dan’s stomach. 

He’s not even sure who he’s jealous of--Phil, for slipping a dagger of affection between Jonas’s ribs without him even knowing, or Jonas, for being the kind of man that Phil bats his eyes for without being paid for it first. 

“It shouldn’t be a problem for someone as long as you,” Jonas acquiesce, like it's all he can do not to add a  _ ittle lady _ on the end.

Jesus, Dan’s going to have to go back to his room as soon as they leave to wank himself raw imagining all the other ways this little interaction could have gone. 

“Then why not?” Phil says, finally glancing back at Dan. “Is that ok?”

Dan blinks. He hadn’t been paying that much attention, lost in his own thoughts and frantic shoving away of the first piques of arousal just listening to Phil and Jonas interact. He hadn’t taken the time to figure out what his excuse would be. 

And now there are three sets of eyes on him, and he can’t grasp at a single reason why not. It’s just a swim in the late spring, in the last gasp between seasons, when it’s not gotten so warm everyone wants to hide in the shadows, but not so cold that the water would be intolerable. 

Dan’s skin aches for the feeling of sun-warm water and, quieter, the company of a pleasant afternoon wasted. 

There are clothes that need to be washed. His own garden needs to be dug up and prepared for summer crops. The last time he’d gone to the market, he’d traded for a handful of books, mostly for the kids but a few novels--one even hinted it might be erotica. There are things to do. 

But when he opens his mouth, a yes comes out. 

Ammon claps his hands like he’s won a battle, despite being nearly as silent as Dan the last few moments. 

“Meet us back here in a few minutes,” Ammon says. “Nick can pack us some food, since he knows how far away this place is.”

“Oh, no! I can-- I can bring--,” Dan casts his mind around, trying to think of what he can make of the odds and ends of a pantry due for restocking. There’s enough for stew and a few loaves of bread, nothing ready for an impromptu excursion.

“We’re already gone, Howell,” Nick says, walking backward away from Dan’s house. “We’re already gathering lunch.”

Ammon rolls his eyes and gives them a lazy salute, just like Jonas’s from earlier and turns on his heel. 

“Well,” Phil says, closing the door quietly behind him. “I hope it's not too far away. These are the only shoes I have--”

“They can’t know,” Dan cuts Phil off. “I know you said you were a friend but--No hints. No jokes about how you came to be here.”

Phil looks back over his shoulder, as if he could see Ammon and Jonas through the door. “Oh.”

Dan shakes his head, “I don’t know what people are like where you come from, but here, they don’t-- _we_ don't respect anything that isn’t natural. That won’t reproduce. To rebuild the population.”

Phil narrows his eyes, just a little, and Dan turns red. 

“I don’t want you to get the wrong ideas,” Dan says, like it might stop him from feeling like a deer caught in headlights. He still doesn’t move when Phil takes a step closer, and then another, until he’s firmly lodged in Dan’s space. He’s close, he’s too close. It’s just like last night when he’d gone in for a hug, he seems to move so fast, or there’s something magnetic about him that makes it so hard for Dan to just move away. 

“Ok, Dan,” Phil says, quietly, so quiet that Dan has to lean in just so he can hear Phil.

And Phil leans in closer to, to accommodate him, closer than hugging distance. Dan can feel the heat coming from his body. He smells like sweet, like the coffee Dan had fed him and like the particular staleness of clothing that’s been packed up for a long time. 

“I’ve been in this business a long time,” Phil murmurs, and Dan swears he can just about feel Phil’s lips brushing against his ear. “I know how to be discrete. Even if we aren’t doing anything at all.”

Phil draws back, and this time Dan does feel his mouth brushing against the patchy stubble on Dan’s cheek. 

And then he’s gone, leaving Dan in the room with nothing but clenched hands and a breath trapped in his chest. 

There are a million thoughts and sensations fighting for attention in his head but there’s one prevailing realisation. Phil had promised him discretion. It had been a promise to keep this business between only the two of them, but Dan’s brain could spin a million and one things he could do with Phil’s promise for discretion. 

He licks his lips and flexes his toes against the heavy wood of the floor, forcing himself to breathe to ten, just to try and stop feeling everything, all at once. 

When he can breath through his nose and not want to crumble to the floor, he shakes his head and goes to find a blanket for them all to sit on, so he’s contributing at least one thing to this little trek. 

The stream is more of a small, slow river. It’s more of a walk than Dan had expected, but when they make it, he sees immediately why Jonas had bothered to bring them along. 

The water is shockingly clear, flowing quietly over a river bed full of smooth, large stones and pebbles. The stream itself is maybe waist deep but they follow the trees to a split at a natural pool that’s gathered from a somewhat dramatic drop in the rock face. The overcast morning has broken out into a clear, if cool day.

They’d talked a little on the way there, lapsing in and out of silence, but they’re all struck speechless by the sight. All except Jonas, who grins at all of them and makes pleased  _ I told you so  _ noises. Dan’s far more familiar with the nature than he’d been before everything had gone to hell, but this place feels like another world, sunlit and quiet, as if it was waiting for them. 

“Well,” Ammon finally says, “Not bad.”

“You love it,” Jonas says and tugs the blanket out of Dan’s arms. He ignores Dan’s mild protesting insistence that he could, in fact, set up the blanket on his own. Instead, he spreads it across the dusty ground, doing his best to avoid the places where tree roots have risen up out of the grown like knobby veins. 

Once he’s satisfied with what he’s arranged, he toes off his trainers and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Dan looks away, but his eyes catch on Ammon, who’s doing the same. 

“Dan,” Ammon asks once he’s tugged his shirt away from his face and hair, “Do you know how to swim? Do I have to make sure two fools don’t drown today?”

“I know how to swim,” Jonas complains, while taking down his jeans and pants. Dan has to look away again, training his eyes on Phil, who’s looking back. 

They hold each other’s gaze for just a moment, but it's a breath too long, long enough for Dan to catch Phil’s eyes dragging away from his face to look at Jonas, who’s standing on the sandy bank, nude now, to continue arguing with Ammon. 

It’s a good thing Jonas isn’t looking. It’s a good thing that Dan is the only one who catches the infinitesimal flicker of Phil’s eyes. 

Dan’s perfected the art of watching men who can’t catch you looking. He recognizes the practice on someone else’s face. 

He sits on the blanket to unlace his own shoes. He can’t--. He can’t keep looking at Phil, because he can’t pretend he doesn't know what Phil is, what Phil’s thinking. And Ammon and Jonas can’t see it on his face. 

They’re so far out from town. Not that it matters. If Ammon and Jonas had seen what Dan saw, there wasn’t a soul in town who would stop them from putting Phil--and Dan--in his place. 

Dan has known Ammon and Jonas for years, long enough to think that maybe that place wouldn’t be in the ground. Broken and bloodied, sure, but alive. 

He can’t say the same for any and everyone in town. 

When Phil comes to sit next to him on the hard ground, Dan braces himself so he doesn’t flinch away. 

“Are you going to swim?” Phil asks, looking at him. Dan has to choose between watching Ammon peel his pants down his long, brown legs and over his flat, now muddy, feet or turning to look at Phil, who’s sitting a touch too close. 

He chooses instead to stand and puts a hand on his own shirt. 

“Yeah,” he says, yanking the material up and over his head. It’s easier like this. If he throws himself in with whatever the other men are doing, no one watches him too closely. He can just blend in, and later teach Phil not to stick out quite so much. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as usual, to jestbee for beta'ing. You can always find me at queerofcups.tumblr.com.


End file.
